Fellows

Isabelle Reinecke

Isabelle Reinecke is a prominent leader successfully driving system change on the critical issues of our time, helping build a fairer, safer and more inclusive Australia. 

In 2017, Isabelle founded Grata Fund, a leading not-profit based that acts as a campaigner, litigation incubator and funder for people and communities challenging systemic gridlocks across three key areas: human rights, climate injustice and democratic freedoms. 

Grata has incubated numerous landmark cases that have set significant precedents and shifted the dial on important subjects, from challenging climate change injustice, to exposing abuse in offshore refugee detention centres, and establishing new rights to humane housing in remote First Nations communities. Prior, Isabelle had more than 10 years’ experience as a director and lawyer at organisations including Getup, Immigration Advice and Rights Centre, and as a solicitor at Clayton Utz, where she acted for First Nations clients seeking stolen wages reparations in remote East Kimberley.

Isabelle was named the 2022 Emerging NFP Leader in Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards, is a Churchill Fellow, and the 2021 Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia Fellow, awarded to women “who are leaders in their respective fields, women who have innovative approaches and the courage, conviction and capacity to create real change”. 

A mum of one, she is also part of the big conversations about providing more support for working mothers and female leaders.

Dr Ramona Vijeyarasa

Ramona Vijeyarasa is the Chief Investigator behind the Gender Legislative Index, a tool designed to promote laws that advance women’s rights and gender equality. Ramona is one of Australia’s leading scholars on gender and the law. Her current research focuses on strengthening accountability for women’s rights at the domestic level across diverse and often over-looked areas of law. It particularly seeks to advance the gender responsiveness of domestic legislation by providing benchmarks for the drafting of new laws and for evaluating existing ones based on global human rights commitments.

An Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney where she is also the Juris Doctor Program Head, Ramona has a decade of experience working in civil society as a women’s rights activist.

In 2023, Ramona was honoured by the American Society of International Law (ASIL), receiving the Women in International Law Interest Group’s (WILIG) Scholarship Prize for Excellence in International Law Scholarship involving Women and Girls, Gender and Feminist Approaches (2022). She also received the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law’s (ANZSIL) Prize for Best Article in 2023. In 2022 Ramona was named the Woman in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Winner in the Law Category and 2nd runner-up as the Women in AI Innovator of the Year. These accolades join grants and awards from New York University, the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Letten Foundation and Young Academy of Norway.

Her latest book, The Woman President: Leadership, Law and Legacy for Women Based on Experiences from South and Southeast Asia was published by Oxford University Press in July 2022.

Dr Rebecca Huntley

Dr Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia’s foremost researchers on social trends. With degrees in law and film studies, and a PhD in Gender Studies, she has lead research at Essential Media and Vox Populi and was a director at Ipsos Australia. For several years, she ran her own research and consultancy firm working closely with climate and environment NGOs, government and business on climate change strategy and communication. She is now Director of Research at the agency 89DegreesEast.

In collaboration with Plan International Australia, Rebecca has been an integral part of building the Gender Compass – a groundbreaking research project segmenting the Australian public into six groups according to their beliefs, policy preferences and behaviours regarding gender equality.

Writing regularly for The Monthly, Australian Traveller Magazine, The Guardian and the SMH, Rebecca is also the author of numerous books including How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way that Makes a Difference (Murdoch books, 2020).

Her board and advisory positions include Australian Parents for Climate Action, the Climate Solutions Centre at the Australian Museum and the Sydney Environment Institute, The Bell Shakespeare Company, The Whitlam Institute and The Dusseldorp Forum.

She was an adjunct senior lecturer at the School of Social Sciences at The University of New South Wales. She is a registered Commonwealth marriage celebrant. She is the mother of three girls and lives in Sydney.

Dr Leonora Risse

Leonora Risse is an economist who specialises in gender equality. She is a Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Canberra, a Research Fellow with the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia, and an Expert Panel member on gender pay equity at the Fair Work Commission. She has served as a Senior Research Economist with the Australian Government Productivity Commission and spent time as a Research Fellow with the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University. She is a co-founder and former National Chair of the Women in Economics Network in Australia.

Leonora’s research focuses on gender gaps in the workforce, including the gender pay gap and women’s under-representation in leadership. She focuses on identifying evidence-based ways to close gender gaps and applying a ‘gender lens’ to economic analysis and policy design. Her areas of expertise extend to labour economics, demographics, economic psychology, disadvantage and wellbeing.

Leonora holds a PhD in Economics, Bachelor of Economics with Honours and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.

In 2021 she was named as one of Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy.

Prof Cordelia Fine

Cordelia Fine is a Professor in the School of Historical & Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. Her work analyses scientific and popular biological explanations of behavioural sex differences and workplace gender inequalities, explores the effects of gender-related attitudes and biases on judgements and decision-making, and contributes to debates about workplace gender equality. She is the author of Delusions of Gender (a Guardian and London Evening Standard Book of the Year, a Washington Post Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year pick) and Testosterone Rex (winner of the Royal Society Science Book prize, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018, and was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year so far.)

Cordelia was also the recipient of the 2018 Edinburgh Medal, for her work in challenging gender bias in science and for her contributions to public debates about gender equality.

Cordelia writes regularly for the popular media on the topic of gender, including for the New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Scientific American and Wall Street Journal.

Dr Andrea Carson

Dr Andrea Carson is a political scientist and a Professor of Political Communication in the department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her research focuses on gender, politics and the media. She has authored numerous books and articles on Australian politics, election campaigns and female representation in politics.

Andrea is a member of La Trobe University’s Council. She is also an inaugural council member of the Victorian Government’s Equal Workplace Advisory Council that advises government on achieving gender equity in the workplace. Recognising her leadership in academia, she is a finalist in the Australian Financial Review’s ’emerging higher education leader’ awards 2023.

Her leadership in research includes as a chief investigator on three nationally competitive Australian Research Council grants to study the pathways to politics for women in local government (2020-2024), trust in media and politics (2022-2027), and government policy responsiveness (2018-2021). She has written three books on media and politics, including as co-editor and author of Australian Politics in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press).

Prior to academia, Andrea was a professional journalist at The Age and ABC. She founded the 2022 election podcast ‘Below The Line’ with The Conversation and is a regular expert commentator in the news media.

Dr Michelle Evans

Dr Michelle Evans is inaugural Director of Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership. She holds an Associate Professorship of Leadership at the Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE) and the Melbourne Business School (MBS).

Michelle is the Associate Dean (Indigenous) at FBE/MBS and is co-Founder of Australia’s number one Indigenous Business Master Class program, MURRA, based at Melbourne Business School, founder of WALAN MAYINYGU Charles Sturt University’s Indigenous entrepreneurship Pop Up innovation hub program and founder of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development at the Faculty of Victorian College of the Arts and Music.
Michelle, a Fulbright scholar, has a unique combination of professional experience in management, community engagement and facilitation coupled with her excellent track record in research. Michelle has attracted five highly competitive Australian Research Council grants, including a Discovery grant to investigate Australian Indigenous political party participation and leadership and most recently to conduct a program evaluation for Indigenous preferential procurement programs. Michelle has personally taught and mentored over 350 Australian Indigenous business people through various Indigenous business programs and serves on a number of committees nationally and internationally that focus on Indigenous advancement and rewarding excellence in engagement.

Stacey Ong

Stacey Ong is an experienced management consultant with over 17 years’ experience in both private, public and community sectors and a leader in social policy.

Stacey is the Executive Director of One Red Step, a social equity consulting practice that she founded aimed at improving the lives of women and girls of colour. One Red Step works with governments and NFP organisations to bring greater community participation and voice in social policy development and implementation.

Stacey is a Board member of Safe and Equal and Melbourne City Mission, and a Honorary Fellow within the University of Melbourne in Law. Prior to establishing One Red Step, Stacey was a Director at a Big 4 consulting firm leading their social policy practice, working on projects such as early intervention for school students experiencing family violence, developing gender impact assessment tools and supporting childcare services to transition to the new childcare funding arrangements. Stacey was the inaugural staff lead of the firm’s cultural diversity and inclusion network, engaging over 7,000 staff, partners and clients in conversations about culture and race.

Emma Dawson

Emma Dawson is Executive Director of public policy think tank Per Capita. Emma has published reports, articles and opinion pieces on a wide range of public policy issues, and is the co-author of Per Capita’s landmark report Measure for Measure: Gender Equality in Australia, and co-editor, with Professor Janet McCalman, of the collection of essays What happens next? Reconstructing Australia after COVID-19, published by Melbourne University Press in September 2020. 

She is a regular contributor to The Age and SMH and Guardian Australia, is a frequent guest on various ABC radio programs nationally, and an occasional panelist on The Drum on ABC TV. She appears regularly as an expert witness before parliamentary inquiries and often speaks at public events and conferences in Australia and internationally.

She has worked as a researcher at Monash University and the University of Melbourne; in policy and public affairs for SBS and Telstra, and as a senior policy adviser in the Rudd and Gillard Governments. She joined the Board of Australia21 in 2021 and is a Fellow of the Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia.

Dr Elise Stephenson

Dr Elise Stephenson is a multi award-winning gender researcher with an entrepreneurial background. She is Deputy Director at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, Australian National University and her work focuses on intervening at critical junctures to be at the forefront of projects on gender, sexuality and leadership.

As a political scientist and international relations scholar, Elise focuses on research in frontier international affairs, from researching space policy, to politics and government, diplomacy, national security, intelligence, AI, climate and the Asia Pacific. In addition to her research, she is the curator of multiple women’s and youth leadership and entrepreneurship programs across Southeast Asia, including the Australia-ASEAN Council’s flagship program, the Australia-ASEAN Emerging Leaders Program.

Elise was recently awarded the 2022 Fulbright Scholarship funded by Monash University for her research on diversity in space, and her book The Face of the Nation: Women in International Affairs will be published with Oxford University Press.

Dr Anjalee de Silva

Dr Anjalee de Silva is a Lecturer at Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne. She is an expert in administrative, anti-discrimination, and free speech and media law and theory, with a focus on harmful speech and its regulation, especially in online contexts. In particular, her work examines vilification or ‘hate speech’ directed at and about women, as well as the role of law in deterring, regulating, and mitigating the harms of such speech. Anjalee holds a PhD, Bachelor of Laws with first class honours, and Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) from the University of Melbourne. Outside academia, Anjalee is a local government Councillor on Monash City Council, where she also serves on the Gender Equity Advisory Committee.